A supernatural slip in time
by Aegbis
Summary: The Doctor crash lands in Toby Caldwell's back garden and invites himself in. After doing so he disappears and Toby decides to go looking for him. Together they go on a particularly interesting adventure. Small Sherlock crossover with Sherlock, John, Mrs. Hudson, and perhaps Lestrade.


Toby raced down the stairs and through the hall. He had one slipper on and half his hair was sticking out at odd ends from how he had slept. He was rushing so much because he had had the rudest of awakenings; he had been sleeping peacefully in bed when a loud metallic wheezing sound and the clang of rubbish bins erupted from the back garden. He had lifted up his window still in a dreamy daze and there, at the bottom of his immensely overgrown garden, was a most ridiculous looking man with floppy brown hair. He was wearing clothes more suitable for a grandfather and a rather charred red fez that matched his equally charred red bow tie. The oddly dressed, but young looking, lad was fumbling his way through the long grass when he caught sight of Toby staring at him out the bedroom window; to which he smiled goofily and gave an enthusiastic wave. Anyway, now Toby was racing to meet, and demand a few answers from, this stranger. Once outside, Toby marched right up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder.  
"Excuse me," he said as politely as he could manage at three in the morning, "but what do..."

"Hello! I'm the Doctor!" The man interrupted, still smiling broadly.

"Yes that's all very well," Toby continued. "But what do you think you are doing in my garden at such a ridiculous hour?!"

"Hey, alright, no need to yell." The man contorted his face to an obvious look of displeasure; almost like a pout. "I was just taking the Tardis for a test run, she's been having a couple of problems recently, and I crash landed here." His smile spread back across his face. "What a lovely garden." And with these words the stranger started trekking up the garden path towards Toby's house leaving Toby looking even more baffled and bewildered than he did before.  
"Hang on a minute!" He called after him, trying to catch up tripping over his own tattered slippers. "Where are you going?! Stop! Excuse me!" But the man continued on walking right into Toby's house.  
Once Toby had caught up he was already in the kitchen admiring the kettle. "Who are you?" Toby asked trying to refrain from pushing this lunatic out into the street.  
"I'm the Doctor." He replied matter-of-factly. His brow furrowed. "Didn't I say that already?"  
"The Doctor?" Toby asked.  
"Yes."  
"Just 'The Doctor'?"

"Yes! ...well, no. Just Doctor really because you wouldn't say; 'Hey, the Doctor, would you like some tea?' That's just weird."  
"Doctor?" Toby spoke cautiously, there was no way the person stood before him, twirling a tea towel, had the qualifications to be a doctor.

"Yes, what do you want?"

"No...nothing, I was just confirming."  
"Oh, very well then. Where shall we start? Tea?" The Doctor, or Doctor, flicked the switch for the kettle and began pulling open drawers and cupboards. "Where do you keep the milk?" He asked turning back to Toby.  
"In the fridge." Toby replied too tired to bother, he had decided that he would just go back to bed and wake up to find it had all been a bizarre dream. He could hear the Doctor's mutterings as he dragged himself up the stairs, something about a fridge being a ridiculous place for milk.

Little did Toby know, the preposterous man making tea downstairs was going to take him on a most magical adventure through the stars, though 'magical' sounds childish doesn't it? But that was most certainly what it was.

When Toby woke up his alarm read 11:45 a.m., one of the wonderful things about a Saturday is the lie in. Toby rolled out of bed and opened the curtains to a blindingly bright rainy day. He sighed and trotted down the stairs sleepily. His pajamas hung loosely on him and his trousers slid down every time he took a step. He shuffled them back up lazily and wandered into the kitchen, flicked the kettle on and pulled his favourite mug out of the drawer. It was a Buzz Lightyear mug with '_To Infinity and Beyond_' printed across it in glow-in the dark green. As he went about his tea making something tickled in the back of his mind, a memory that buzzed as he slid towards the fridge. He slumped a hand on the cold metallic handle and his eyes almost popped out of his head in shock. The Doctor! Was he still there? Did he leave? Where was he? Toby raced out of the kitchen sticking his head into every room. No Doctor. He must have left sometime while Toby had been sleeping, or perhaps it really had been just a dream. Then, something caught Toby's eye, something that proved it had not in fact been a dream but reality. A charred red fez sat neatly atop the coffee table next to the T.V. remote. Toby groaned but he picked it up and plonked it on his head anyway. He trudged back to the kitchen to finish preparing tea.  
As Toby sat pondering in his armchair he thought maybe the crazy git had scuttled back to whatever part of London he had come from, but something also made him think that there was something about that man that was more peculiar than late night wanders. Toby also thought that perhaps this ridiculous fez was a thinking hat but he thought the better of that and batted it off his head finishing the last drop of his tea. After rinsing out his mug he continued with his regular morning routine; shower, dress, biscuit, teeth, bike, work. Toby had the most exciting task of sorting tax papers every day, though occasionally he got the chance to make everyone in the office coffee. At least he'd have tomorrow off and today he only had to work for five hours.

When Toby was biking home he passed a scene filled with the glow of red and blue lights and the glare of reflective police jackets. Toby tried to peer over the crowd, he just managed to catch a glimpse of a covered body being rolled into an ambulance. A tight lump formed in his throat. He looked away, swallowing.  
A muffled gravelly voice yelled something above the noise. Toby shook his head and began peddling again instead of than welling up over someone he didn't even know he focused on the turning movement of his feet. The rest of the journey was uneventful, all the regular things, Mrs. Dawson was walking her dog and she smiled and waved cheerily as Toby passed, the boy on the corner called out his usual arrangement of various rude words, and the fat grey cat from 24 was scrapping with the scrawny orange one from 17. Toby pulled up the short garden path and dismounted, trying not to catch his foot and tear his trousers this time. He blushed as he remembered the moment then coughed quickly in case anybody was watching. He hurried inside and swung the door shut. Leaving his bike in the hallway with his coat he turned in to the living room. The burnt fez still lay on its side by his arm chair where he had knocked it this morning. He turned it slowly in his hands examining its charred exterior. Thinking of this morning he placed it gingerly back on his tuft of dark brown hair, but when he saw his reflection in the tele he quickly scooped it up and placed it pack on the coffee table.

He moved into the kitchen, opened the mug drawer, pulled out a plain orange mug (remembering that his Buzz Lightyear one was in the dishwasher still), and flicked on the kettle. The kettle had just dinged when he heard a familiar voice yelling from across the street.  
"Yes, well I've got a sonic thing too!" shouted the voice. "And I can do an awful lot of cool things with my sonic thing!" Toby wasn't sure what the other sound was, it was like the gurgle of the food dispenser if you had put too much spaghetti in it and then put that sound through one of those electronic things. "That's a little rude." The voice called again. Toby ran out the front door to see what was going on. Though when he got there, his mind couldn't really comprehend what was happening. It was the madman and Half of Mrs. Dawson, as in she was split in half so that she was just a torso. Her legs were sticking out of a nearby rose bush at odd angles. Mrs. Dawson made the electronic gurgling noise and moved quite quickly toward the Doctor. Under her flesh stomach Toby could see loads of spindly centipede legs crawling over one another. Toby retched. The Doctor dived out of her way, or its way, and grabbed one of the rubbish bins. He tipped the contents on the street and dropped the bin over her head with a crash. He rushed to sit on it before she could get out. "Now you listen here, you are to return to your own planet and tell them that earth is not ready for intergalactic coffee trade, just because it's called Starbucks does not mean that it is to be sold amongst the stars, understood?" Mrs. Dawson knocked on the bin a few times in a frustrated manner then took off, darting round the street with the metal bin still on her head and the Doctor sitting on top of that, screaming "Stop! Stop, I order you to stop!" The bin halted suddenly and the Doctor almost fell off. Mrs. Dawson made a series of screeches and gurgles in a way that would have made Skrillex proud. The Doctor smiled. "Yes, a deal in the future is quite possible, but you have to wait for the humans to come to you." Mrs. Dawson clicked and the Doctor slowly slid of the bin. It toppled of sideways clanging against the concrete. The two shock hands and Mrs. Dawson took her legs out of the rose bush and went inside her house. The doctor turned to see Toby standing in his front garden with his mouth hanging open. "Would you believe I thought she was you?" The Doctor laughed. "What was your name again?"  
"Uh, T-Toby." Toby stuttered.  
"Nice to meet you, Toby." The Doctor waved and made his way to the end of the street where a blue box stood on the corner. Funny, Toby hadn't noticed it before.  
"Wait, Doctor!" Toby called. The Doctor kept walking. "Doctor!" Toby chased after him, stopped, turned around, went back to his house, went inside, grabbed the hat and his keys, went back out, locked the door, and resumed chasing the Doctor. The Doctor went inside the blue box, an old police box, Toby pushed open the door slightly expecting to see him standing in the dark by himself. Toby was taken aback, there were lights in the box, a room in the box. "Doctor?" Toby called. The man popped up from behind what looked like a hexagonal control panel in the centre of the room.  
"Toby! What a pleasant surprise, don't just stand there, come in!" The Doctor beamed. Toby took a step back out of the box. He circled it and went back inside.  
"That's brilliant." Toby said. The Doctor smiled from his control panel. "Someone's drugged my tea and now I'm on some sort of halluconogenic trip." The smile fell from the man's face.  
"No, you're in the TARDIS, which stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."  
"Right, okay." Toby smirked.  
"Seriously, this is my spaceship. It travels through space." The Doctor grinned. "And occasionally it travels through time too." Toby laughed.  
"If you can take me to a farmer's market on the planet Zog I'll eat my right sock."  
"Fine. Farmer's market on the planet Zog it is." He pushed a lever and twisted some things, flicking switches, and pressing buttons in seemingly random order. The box jerked and made a gasping, wheezing noise that sounded strangely familiar. Toby was flung to one side and the box jolted again. "There we are then." The Doctor beamed bouncing towards the doors. Toby followed cautiously. He could hear noise coming from outside, excitement and haggling.  
"No way." Toby muttered as he got closer. "I don't believe you." He slipped through the door out into the sun. There was dirt beneath his feet, coloured banners and cloth flying above his head and strange aliens selling even stranger things.  
"To be fair, it isn't the planet Zog, but that's mostly because I'm pretty sure there's no such planet." The Doctor leant against the police box. Toby stood in shock with his mouth hung open.  
"Does that mean you're...not be rude or anything because I don't want to offend you and it's fine if you are, I just gotta know, you know...? Are you an alien?" He asked, almost blushing. "Or just, like, a human with alien stuff?"  
"No, I'm an Alien. Timelord." The Doctor said.  
"You don't look alien. Not like this lot anyway. Do you wear a disguise?"  
"No. This is my face, well, one of them."  
"One of them?"  
"Yes, I regenerate, kind of hard to explain. It's like cheating death by getting a new everything."  
"Oh." Toby said. He looked around. A fly-like man was standing at a stall with hovering metallic objects scattered over the clothed table. Some walking trees with faces passed him and he yelled prices at them. Toby realised that the prices were in English. "Do aliens speak English?"  
"Oh, no, that's a TARDIS thing. It translates for you." The Doctor smiled at Toby. Toby grinned back.  
"That's seriously amazing."  
"Seriously." He agreed.  
"Did you say time machine?" Toby's eyes lit up.  
"I did." The Doctor replied cautiously. "I must warn you, you can't alter past events." Toby's face sagged.  
"That's less amazing."  
"Shall we go then?" The Doctor said motioning his head towards the open TARDIS door. Toby nodded re-entering the spaceship box. The Doctor hopped inside after him. "Now where do you _really_ want to go?"


End file.
